


“Like Father, Like Gun”: A Psychoanalytic Reading of Just Roll With It

by braadvengolor



Series: Just Roll With It Essays [1]
Category: Just Roll With It (Podcast)
Genre: Essays, Gen, Psychoanalysis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:07:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24294091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/braadvengolor/pseuds/braadvengolor
Summary: Exploring the Just Roll With It party through the lens of psychoanalysis, and in particular exploring the concepts of core issues and defense mechanisms.*THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR BOTH ARC 1 & ARC 2*_____I wrote this essay for class and honestly forgot to post it here until just now.
Series: Just Roll With It Essays [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1775350
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	“Like Father, Like Gun”: A Psychoanalytic Reading of Just Roll With It

**Author's Note:**

> I posted a link to a google doc version of this on the discord so if you’re thinking you’ve seen this before, you may have. 
> 
> Also, because of how ao3 formats text this will probably end up looking like a huge wall of text. I’m very sorry about that but I cannot change it.

Just Roll With It is an excellent example of a work with very flawed characters. What can be learned from these characters and their flaws? Through the exploration of their core issues and their defense mechanisms, much can be learned from Taxi, Mountain, Velrisa, Br’aad, and Sylnan. Each party member has different things that make them tick, what are these issues, where could they come from?  


Taxi is a character with many core issues to work through. The most obvious of these is his insecure sense of self and his low self-esteem. After performing poorly in a fight, Taxi becomes exceedingly insecure. He had always been insecure, however after the aforementioned fight he began to spiral even deeper into his insecurities. He becomes awkward and reclusive, choosing to separate himself from his friends. He even goes as far as to ask a barmaid if he “looks weak” to her (43:25; s. 2 ep. 20). The fact that he felt the need to ask an outside source if he “looks weak” shows that his perception of himself relies largely on how others perceive him. Had he felt more secure in himself, he would not have felt the need to search for outside validation. This perceived failure sends him into a spiral of insecurity, leading him to believe that he is the weakest of his friends and that he is therefore unworthy of their company. It is interesting that Taxi would not seek out the approval of his friends, and instead seeks out the validation of a stranger. This is typical of Taxi; when he is hurt emotionally he will distance himself from his friends— both emotionally and physically. This is indicative of a fear of intimacy, which may also be related to his lack of self-esteem. Taxi may feel that he is not deserving of the validation of his friends, and therefore looks towards strangers for validation instead as he does not perceive these strangers to be stronger than him or superior to him. Much of Taxi’s insecurity surrounding his strength appears to stem from an incident in which his girlfriend, Oriana, was injured and he was unable to protect her (35:44; s. 1 ep. 15). He feels as though whatever happened was his fault, and he blames himself and his own weakness on her getting injured. Taxi’s relationship with Mountain is particularly telling of his insecurity. Mountain is (physically) the strongest of the group, and their rivalry is largely one-sided and centered entirely on Taxi’s feelings of physical inferiority. Taxi will often make jabs at Mountain regarding his height in an effort to diminish his physical strength.  


Mountain is not without flaws— he also displays a fear of intimacy. Mountain very infrequently will divulge any sort of information about himself or his feelings. When his deceased wife’s locket was stolen from him after he and Sylnan were kidnapped by Brendan, he was very reluctant to acknowledge what it was at first. He chose instead to refer to it as “my property” (56:16; s. 1 ep. 11)— thereby diminishing it’s true value to him and distancing himself from its emotional impact on him. Only when forced to acknowledge that attempting to recover it would more than likely be a suicide mission did he reveal what it was and why it was so important to him. Due to Mountain’s aforementioned reluctance to discuss his true motivations and despite being explicitly told that there is no way he would come out alive, when presented with the slightest opportunity to get at Brendan Mountain decides to go after him alone. Had this been any other item that belonged to him, he would likely have not gone after it with such fervor. Mountain displaces the rage he feels about his wife’s passing on to Brendan, using him to express his emotions and going after him as though he had been the one to kill her. Instead of confronting his feelings about her passing, he takes his rage out on Brendan. Mountain also frequently employs denial as a defense mechanism, his refusal to address his problems and unwillingness to speak about his past and his feelings certainly show this. Mountain will frequently ignore his problems in order to protect himself from acknowledging their effects, typically causing them to grow worse. At one point, Mountain was aged twenty years due to the effect of a spell. When asked if he had been effected, he chose not to say and to simply allow the effect to become permanent. He likely chose not to divulge this information in order to maintain a strong appearance. Perhaps he felt that by acknowledging that he had been affected when others had not he was admitting to weakness, and that accepting help for this failing would further prove his weakness. On the other hand, it is entirely possible that he simply did not realize that it had happened at all as the change would not be significant given his dwarven lifespan. While despite his best efforts, Mountain is fairly easy to read, it is much harder to read Velrisa.  


Velrisa’s core issues are harder to determine as she is not as vocal as the other party members. However, Velrisa was abandoned and shunned by her parents when she was born due to being born a Tiefling (32:40; s. 2 ep. 7.5). She is aware of the fact that her parents did not want her, she was raised instead by her uncle. This would likely lead to her developing a fear of abandonment. Based on the fact that she is more reclusive than the other party members, it can be said with some confidence that she does, in fact, have a fear of abandonment. She does say “I don’t even hold anything against them” (33:16; s. 2 ep. 7.5) (them being her parents), however this does not mean that she cannot still be negatively affected by their abandonment. Being raised by her uncle, Velrisa still has knowledge of her parents and siblings. Although not shown in the podcast, the fact that her parents abandoned her and not her siblings likely had some negative impact on her self-esteem and sense of self. Her parents also blame her for her younger sister’s poor health, likely causing harm to her self-image. Velrisa is prone to avoidance, she appears to subconsciously avoid forming deep, meaningful relationships with others. She is not outspoken, and tends to avoid situations in which she would grow closer to the other party members. Her and Mountain have this in common, they both will go to great lengths to avoid expressing their feelings. Velrisa may be less outspoken in order to prevent herself from growing too close, protecting herself from emotional harm from potential abandonment but simultaneously creating a self-fulfilling prophecy in which she does not grow close to anyone, causing them to leave her.  


Velrisa is not the only one to have lost her parents, Br’aad’s mother died when he was a baby and his father was forced to abandon them at the same time. He and his older brother, Sylnan, spent their formative years in an orphanage. They were relentlessly bullied at the orphanage (105:00; s. 1 ep. 21), both physically and verbally. This childhood of bullying appears to have left a lasting mark on Br’aad’s self-esteem. After him and Sylnan escape the orphanage and begin a life on their own, Br’aad begins to feel as though he is not helping Sylnan enough and is willing to go to drastic measures in order to prove himself and to feel as though he can be of use to Sylnan again. Br’aad, in order to feel as though he is worthy of his brother’s care, sells his soul to Ob'nockshai in exchange for magical ability (130:00; s. 1 ep. 21). Sylnan’s negative reaction to him doing this shows that Br’aad’s fears of not doing enough are entirely within his own imagination. Br’aad is described as having a terrible memory, Br’aad’s “shitty memory” (36:20; s. 1 ep. 11) may not be simply coincidental, he may be subconsciously forgetting that which is too painful to remember. The brain is not always good at deciding what is and is not too painful, and sometimes represses or forgets that which is mundane or important. One specific important thing that Br’aad forgets is Katherine, Sylnan’s girlfriend whom he would have met when he and Sylnan were living in the orphanage (32:06; s. 1 ep. 15). The orphanage was traumatic for Br’aad, being a place where he was continually abused by staff and child alike. Therefore, it makes sense that important memories from this time would get erased along with more traumatic memories from that time. In times of extreme duress, Br’aad will also employ denial to shield himself. When Br’aad is told that Sylnan is gone, he replies “what do you mean? He’s right here!” (45:55; s. 1 ep. 19) and refuses to acknowledge that nothing can be done, continually trying everything in his ability to revive his brother, begging Velrisa to attempt to heal him despite the fact that he is obviously dead and that she tells him that there is nothing that she can do. Br’aad has also demonstrated selective perception in quite a dramatic fashion. Due to an incident in his past, Br’aad is afraid of cows. When confronted with this fear, he literally blinds and deafens himself so that he does not have to confront it (205:54, s. 2 ep. 22). This is a literal demonstration of selective perception, and a very extreme one.  


Sylnan is very literally fighting his inner demons. Due to the fact that he will not forgive himself for the way he spoke to Br’aad the night he left, a demon has begun to slowly possess him, slowly filling his head with darker and darker thoughts (96:05, 130:49; s. 1 ep. 21). Sylnan blames himself for Br’aad leaving, thereby placing the blame for the single most painful event in his life squarely on his own shoulders. This has a substantially negative effect on his self-esteem. Sylnan has had many important people in his life die. First, when he was three, his mother died and his father was forced to abandon him. After that, his girlfriend, Katherine inexplicably went missing without a trace. Lastly, he and Br’aad got into a fight about Br’aad selling his soul and Br’aad left shortly after. Br’aad is very important to Sylnan, he describes Br’aad as “basically the only joy I have in my life at this point” (128:36; s. 1 ep. 21). Him leaving severely wounded Sylnan, bringing to light a fear of abandonment, his departure causing Sylnan to lose himself and to seek out other sources of comfort. In order to defend himself from the overwhelming despair he feels from his brother leaving, Sylnan displaces his brotherly feelings onto Hilltree. In order to cope with the loss, Hilltree becomes Sylnan’s “replacement Br’aad” (30:31; s. 1 ep. 19). In every way, Hilltree fills the role that Br’aad did in Sylnan’s life. This is very telling of how Sylnan deals with other, more minor forms of distress. Much like Mountain, Sylnan seeks to displace his stress in order to make his feelings more manageable and to make them less overwhelming.  


The party members are very complicated, and their core issues and defense mechanisms are varied. It can be helpful to examine characters and their flaws in order to find things out about oneself and one’s own flaws, to take a look at behaviors in an abstract sense and to examine them in an environment that feels safe. By looking at the core issues and defense mechanisms of Taxi, Mountain, Velrisa, Br’aad, and Sylnan, one is able to see these things in oneself and to understand potential sources of these issues. Psychoanalytic analysis of fictional characters can, in an abstract sense, become psychoanalytic criticism of oneself.

Bibliography:  
Tyson, Lois. _Critical Theory Today: a User-Friendly Guide_. 2nd ed., Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2006.  
Just Roll With It. _Just Roll With It_ , Spotify, June 17 2018–present, https://open.spotify.com/show/5fB5yYxog6PhYsrWHDi8uY?si=xfe9VQ7SSLmTzhtDPKfpOA

**Author's Note:**

> small update: I received a 35/40 for this assignment. no revisions will be made.


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